Fantastic luxury city and wine tour with Helen! - We had an amazing day doing a private tour of Wellington and visiting several of the wineries in the Martinborough region with Helen Waddington of Silver Cloud tours. Helen... read more was gracious, warm, extremely courteous and very knowledgeable about Wellington and the nearby Martinborough wine region. She speaks very clearly, with lots of background information, and is the ultimate tour guide!

We enjoyed a drive through the city and then rode the cable car. We then drove through the neighbouring mountains to Martinborough, with a lovely stop for Devonshire tea and a brief garden tour at the beautiful Aston Norwood Country Gardens.

Through Helen’s personal connections with the wineries, we were able to visit some beautiful cellar doors and taste a wide variety of wines, including great visits to Palliser, Schubert, Tirohana and Luna. Lunch at Tirohana was absolutely superb with great service from Toby and his team. Martinborough is such a wonderful wine region, with great scenery as well, as we are so glad to have discovered it.

Helen’s vehicle was very comfortable and she drove very carefully and always looked out to help us in and out of the car. She was very responsive to our questions when we were booking the tour and she was very flexible in putting together exactly what we wanted for our day. Everything about the day was absolutely top notch and it was all included in the tour price.

Helen is a superb tour guide (and she made it feel more like spending a special day with a good friend!). While many tours deserve 5 stars on Trip Advisor, if it was possible to give 10 stars Helen would get 10! Our day with her was certainly a highlight of our lovely 6 week visit to New Zealand. We highly recommend her luxury tours and you will be lucky indeed if you get to spend a day with Helen. Thank you Helen for such a special day!

  One of best land tours ever taken. - Our tour for ten people from the Cruise ship Regal Princess on Feb 7, 2017 was one of the best land tours we've ever taken. It was on a very... read more comfortable van for ten people and it was like Helen Waddington the tour company owner and guide was our best friend showing us her home town. Friendly , knowledgeable, great sense of humor and filled with anecdotes about her beloved Wellington. At the end we felt like we really knew Wellington. She even sent us a photo of our ship leaving the harbor sailing past her home.

  Wonderful Day in Wellington! - Three of us were on a Celebrity cruise and wanted a tour of Wellington. We didn't want to do a ship excursion, but we were willing to share a... read more minivan with others. Then we found Helen and we were able to do a private tour and what a wonderful tour it was! She suggested an itinerary and she was just fine with us modifying it slightly. She took us to all of the highlights in Wellington including the Cable Car in Kelburn, Mt Victoria Lookout, Weta Workshop, St Paul's Church, Te Papa Museum (we loved the Gallipoli Exhibit and the Marae). We had lunch at the Roxy Theater which is a lovely art deco building. Helen was an excellent guide, providing lots of information about Wellington and she was always willing to answer our questions. She also added personal touches to the tour: bottles of water, tissues, mints and a "sweet" surprise when she dropped us off at the ship. It was obvious that Helen loves and is very proud of her city! I would recommend her tour to anyone who will be visiting Wellington! Thanks again, Helen, for a great day!

  Great day in Wellington with Helen!! - Our group of 9 arriving on the Celebrity Solstice in November 2017 had a fantastic tour of Wellington with Helen in a very comfortable van. We saw the highlights... read more of the city and had a great lunch at the newly renovated art deco Roxy Theatre. We also had a tour of the WETA studios. Helen had a great knowledge of her city and a wonderful and engaging personality. We had a great day.

  Great way to see lots of Wellington Sites - I found this tour by accident, and was not disappointed. She explained a lot about her hometown, took us to many sights, especially ones that I really wanted to see... read more Zealandia, took us to the Cable Car Museum, rode the Cable Car and experienced how steep the hills are. We had high tea at the Roxy Cinema and Cafe. The food was excellent and walked around the Roxy and saw a real Oscar award and a display of "Precious". We went to Weta Caves and saw many props used in Peter Jackson's movies, drove around Seatoun Bay, saw Peter Jackson's house, site of the first Maori Landing of Kupe at Oruatiti Reserve, Mt. Victoria where we saw a 360 degree view of Wellington, the Rose Garden, Peace Flame Japanese Garden with waterfall, the "Beehive" Parliament grounds and to the Backbencher Gastropub to look at puppets of famous politicians. We had a very nice time and Helen. You won't be disappointed!

  Absolute top service Friendly informative professional service Going the extra mile Nothing too problematic for Helen and Mark Would absolutely recommend them to anyone in the Wellington... read more region and all things airport transport and transfer

  Simply Amazing!! - Helen was simply amazing! We booked a wine tour with Helen based on all the wonderful TripAdvisor reviews and we are so happy we did! She arranged a full... read more day of wine tasting, lunch, a brief tour of Wellington and even a stop at Rivendell for some views of the LOTR filing locations.

She not only had a perfect itinerary, but she also had waters, mints, cheese and crackers available to us - she seriously thought of everything! The wines were delicious and the stop for lunch (included) had the best lamb shank I’ve ever tasted!

My husband and I just got back to our cruise ship and can’t stop talking about how fantastic this tour and Helen’s hospitality was. This was defiitely the best wine tour we’ve taken, and we’ve taken many!

Thank you Helen, for such a amazing day!

  Helen has an approachable, vibrant personality with an encyclopaedia for a brain! So much stories she had shared during our transfer between Wellington and Kapiti Coast. Vehicle was classy,... read more clean and comfortable. Top notch service! Would use her again!

  I went to NZ North Island for a tour and had a couple of days free to explore the region. I came across this amazing tour which I could do... read more as a solo person. Helen oozed enthusiasm with her knowledge of Wellington / Martinborough Region. I recommend this tour to anyone visiting the region. Helen made my tour of exactly what I requested and I felt completely relaxed in her company. Thank you so much Helen and will promote you to anyone I know going to Wellington.

  Best Day of our 3 weeks in New Zealand -- Wine Tour of Martinborough with Silver Cloud Luxury Tours - We booked a full day, customized Martinborough Wine Tour with Silver Cloud Luxury Tours. Helen, our guide and owner of the company, delivered an incredible experience. She set the Platinum... read more standard for service, friendliness and knowledge. I'm afraid we're spoiled for life now. It was the best day we had in New Zealand and we had some very amazing days there.

She left nothing to chance. She asked about our wine preferences and customized the tour to suit them. Her spotless MB van was directly imported, had extremely comfortable "captains chairs", road well and was well stocked with various drinks and snacks. The multiple sunroofs were a delightful and unexpected addition to the experience. Her family is in the wine business and she was greeted as an old friend at all the wineries we visited. She arranged for several wine tours, not just tastings. She knows Peter Jackson personally so, when we stopped at lovely parks for pictures and drove over the Rimutaka Ranges to Martinborough, she pointed out many places that were used for filming scenes of Lord of the Rings and the digital effects studios that remain. She tells great stories. She dealt with a sudden, unannounced bridge closing with aplomb.

Our first stop was Schubert Wines where Kai explained each of the broad selection of wines we tasted. We bought a lovely, unusual Rose. We had an excellent wine tasting and an exquisite lunch with Toby at Tirohana Estate. Lucy at Murdock James estate devoted an enormous amount of time to us. Her passion showed in her explanation of growing grapes for good wines and dealing with Mother Nature's vicissitudes. We finished at Te Kairangi Estate where we sampled several delicious whites and reds and bought two of their red Reserve wines. Interspersed with the winery visits were multiple breaks for coffee and snacks and shopping. She made extra stops for us to replace items we had lost previously during our travels.

Even at the end of our long day of touring, she was still smiling and helpful. We were flying out of Wellington airport the next day and it is under construction. She tracked down the new location and instructions for checking in with our airline so we wouldn't have any surprises. And, it turned out that she was good friends of and neighbors with the owners of Acorns B&B, where we were staying (also great)..

Overall, not only was this an unbelievably good tour but we have never been so well taken care of. I cannot recommend Silver Cloud Luxury Tours highly enough.